Teen charged in craigslist murder case; man named as accomplice

Friday

Nov 18, 2011 at 12:01 AMNov 19, 2011 at 4:40 AM

A high-school student was charged today in a murder-robbery scheme that authorities say used a craigslist ad to lure two men to Noble County, where freshly dug graves awaited them. Meanwhile, the man who friends say was the teen's mentor is sitting in jail under a $1 million bond, though authorities haven't yet charged him in the scheme.

A high-school student was charged today in a murder-robbery scheme that authorities say used a craigslist ad to lure two men to Noble County, where freshly dug graves awaited them.

Meanwhile, the man who friends say was the teen’s mentor is sitting in jail under a $1 million bond, though authorities haven’t yet charged him in the scheme.

The body of what is likely a Florida man was unearthed this week from a shallow grave in a remote area of Noble County, where investigators found a second grave they believe was intended for a man who escaped his assailants but took a bullet in the arm.

Officials confirmedthat a 16-year-old boy was charged with delinquency counts of attempted murder and complicity to attempted murder in the case. His age and the severity of the charges mean he is likely to be tried as an adult.

Noble County officials released no other information, citing a gag order issued by a judge at the request of the arrested youth's lawyer.

However, court records examined by The Dispatch identified the juvenile as Brogan W. Rafferty, a junior at Stow-Munroe Falls High School in Summit County.

A police officer guarded Stowe-Munroe Falls High School near Akron on Friday, shooing away reporters.

No one answered the doorthis evening at the home of Rafferty’s father in the suburb of Stow. Rafferty’s parents are divorced and he lives with his father, officials said.

Sickler said that an adult suspect in the case has not yet been charged. The paperwork filed in Rafferty’s case, however, says the teen assisted Richard J. Beasley in attempting to murder a man who survived.

A sheriff’s office incident report identified the man who fled from his assailants as Scott W. Davis, 48, who could not be located for comment.

Davis lives in South Carolina, but listed his address as his mother’s home in Canton on the police report.

He reportedly came to Ohio after answering an ad on craigslist that promised $300 a week and use of a two-bedroom trailer on a “secluded and beautiful” 688-acre farm.

“It will be a real get away for the right person,” the ad, which has since been pulled from craigslist, read.

The ad began running on the Internet in early October and called the offer “a job of a lifetime."

Court records show that Beasley, 52, of Akron, is being held in the Summit County jail after his bonds on pending drug-trafficking and prostitution-related charges were revoked and he was ordered held under a $1 million bond. Authorities wouldn’t discuss why his bond was set so high.

He and Rafferty both were arrested on Wednesday.

According to the Akron Beacon-Journal newspaper, Beasley had mentored Rafferty through The Chapel, a Christian church in Akron with more than 6,000 members.

“Brogan had a hard life and shame on Richard for taking him with him,” a church member told the Akron newspaper. “I never thought of Brogan as violent. He had a kind spirit.”

Chuch members told the Beacon-Journal that Rafferty had been friends with Beasley for most of his life because Beasley knew his father. Rafferty began attending The Chapel with Beasley and his family years ago.

Of the charges against her son, Carol Beasley said: “That just doesn’t sound like Richard. He was trying to mentor Brogan for years. I just hope to God this is all false.”

“The allegations against Richard are terrible, really dreadful, but as far I'm concerned, it's all bull,” his father, Charles Beasley, told The Dispatch from the couple’s Akron home.

Beasley’s parents say their son has a gifted IQ but lasted only a short time at the University of Akron before heading to Texas in the 1980s to find work.

There, they said, he ended up in prison for seven years for a series of break-ins. He had a daughter, who is now 17, before he was sent back to prison in the mid-1990s for firearms convictions, his parents said. Beasley has been divorced several times, according to records.

Beasley also called himself a chaplain and was a regular at the Summit County Courthouse as an advocate for inmates, the Beacon-Journal reported. He made sure they were seeking counseling for their addictions, said Rhonda Kotnik, an Akron attorney who represents Beasley.

“He was reformed and he was taking defendants into court trying to help them,” Kotnik said. “He was taking these people under his wing and speaking on their behalf. We all know him. The judges all know him.”

Beasley had bought an Akron home with a settlement he received from a car crash, and ran a Christian-based halfway house out of it. He took in men and women recently released from prison as boarders.

But it was from that home, officials said, that he was running a prostitution ring and trafficking in painkillers, leading to his most recent charges.

Authorities were preparing Friday afternoonto detail the filing of charges against Rafferty when Noble County Common Pleas Court Judge John Nau wouldn’t allow it.

They did, however, detail the events leading to the arrest of Rafferty. .

Davis reported that two men attempted to kill him on Nov. 6 along a gravel road while taking him to a farm near Caldwell in Noble County, where they told him he would work. He was shot in his arm while fleeing the suspects. He hid in the woods for seven hours and then found a house where he called for help.

Authorities first heard of the other victim on Nov. 11, when a Boston woman called the sheriff’s office to report that her twin brother had vanished after responding to a craigslist ad. Her brother, who lived in Florida, was last seen in Parkersburg, W.Va., on Oct. 22.

The sheriff’s office then summoned assistance from federal and state authorities and began searching the remote wooded area where Davis was shot.

On Monday, searchers using cadaver dogs found an empty shallow grave that investigators think was dug to hold the body of Davis.

Then, on Tuesday, searchers found a shallow grave that held the body thought to be the man from Florida. Authorities haven’t yet released the identity of that man or how he died.

In a Facebook posting for The Chapel church, Rafferty posted a remark last month about seeing an ambulance with a woman in it:

“You can’t help but be thankful for the bad hands you get delt in life,” he said, “because it can always get worse.”

Dispatch reporter Stephanie Czekalinski and the Akron Beacon-Journal contributed to this report.

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